Farai - CCIE 42487
| birth_place = | residence = South Africa | citizenship = Zimbabwean | nationality = Zimbabwean | occupation = IP/MPLS Network Expert | net worth = | children = Duncan Dalu | religion = born Methodist | known_for = Routing, Switching, MPLS, BGP, MP-BGP, Security, MPLS VPN, QoS | previous companies = ATIO www.atio.com, TELLABS www.tellabs.com, current: JSE www.jse.co.za | module = }} Farai Mdutywa Dalu; (Farai is an African Shona name meaning rejoice) born 15 July 1982 is a Zimbabwean nationality by birth and currently a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE #42487) in Service Provider networks. He is known by either of his names and currently residing in Gauteng , South Africa where his career in IP networks grew and advanced. Farai was born in a small town of Kadoma, Zimbabwe near his grandfather's small to medium farm in ZOWA http://www.getamap.net/maps/zimbabwe/zimbabwe_%28general%29/_zowadivision/, Mashonaland West Province, Zimbabwe. Early life Farai Mdutywa was born in Kadoma, Zimbabwe, Farai spent the majority of his young life in Bulawayo, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe with his parents and brothers. He grew up a techy kid eager to operate every gadget he came across, be it remote controlled cars, calculators, TV and radios. In 1994 he learned how to make a simple radio transceiver using a couple of transistors, coils and diodes with his friends at junior school. Farai learnt his primary education at Nyamande Primary School in the township of Old Lobengula in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (Township was named after the second and last Matabele King Lobengula). He also spent most of his school holidays at his grandfather’s farm in ZOWA, Mashonaland West Province, Zimbabwe who was a Master Farmer in cotton and maize. Biography Education 1996-99 : Did his secondary education at Matopo Mission http://wikimapia.org/8858812/Matopo-Mission which was founded in 1898 by Brethren in Christ church. Farai was a school prefect in 1998 to 1999 and played soccer, athletics and [ball. He wrote his GCE O' Level in June 2009 and November. He was one of the last batch in Zimbabwe to write Cambridge exams in June 2009. ZIMSEC http://www.zimsec.co.zw/ was introduced and first exams were written in November 2009 and Farai was one of the first to write such exams in Zimbabwe 2000-01 : Did High School at Gifford High School were he studied Mathematics, Physics and Geography. He was in school swimming team, played soccer, volley ball and also did athletics. As he was in boarding school, he also played table tennis, tennis and soccer five aside during their free time over the weekend. 2002 : Farai registered with UNISA http://www.unisa.ac.za in South Africa to pursue his dream of becoming a Computer Scientist. He later dropped out because Financial Reasons. 2002-06 : Farai also studied at Speciss College http://www.specisscollege.com, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe where he studied two courses simultaneous in Advanced Information Processing and Advanced Telecommunication Systems with City and Guilds of London Institute before attending National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe where he was at the Cisco Networking Academy. This is were he started his Cisco Systems courses with the basics of IP networking. He pursued CCNA and Cisco IT Essentials which included Server+ and A+ which are part of the CompTIA board. Farai graduated at Speciss College http://www.specisscollege.com end of 2006. Career While studying at Speciss College http://www.specisscollege.com, Farai got his first full time job at the Ministry of Water Resources and Development (Zimbabwe) where he was employed as a Data and Research Officer in the Gwayi Catchment area. He later resigned so as to finish his studies at Speciss College http://www.specisscollege.com. In 2006, Farai joined an SME company DDTech Pvt Ltd in Bulawayo where he started off as a Technician installing satellite equipment and programming them, repairing computers, doing software installation, and also working on campus LAN. By end of 2007, he co-partnered the company and lead it to great heights in the Matabeleland North Province, Bulawayo, Matabeleland South Province and Midlands Province in Zimbabwe. In 2009, he landed an opportunity at ATIO http://www.atio.co.za/Telecoms.html where he started as a Radio Network Technician doing performance and network quality testing on the Vodacom RAN access network www.vodacom.co.za. His college dreams were now almost a reality as he studied Telecommunication Systems and dreamnt of working for MTN Business www.mtnbusiness.co.za. He advanced his career through self-study specialising on IP and MPLS networks. He had a full home rack LAB which he used to practice and run various network tests and designs. In early and late 2011 he was now certified as a CCNP and CCIP respectively. He attempted his CCIE in Routing & Switching in May 2012. During this time he was now a Network Specialist in the Interactive Division http://www.atio.co.za/IT_Outsourcing.html. He was one of the few to work in both the Telecoms and Interactive divisions in the company because of his networking skills. In June 2012 Farai left www.atio.com to join Tellabs, www.tellabs.com as a Snr Technical Support Engineer. His main role was a Technical support for Vodacom South Africa a member of Vodafone group on their IP backhaul and Access network nationwide. Before he left the company in March 2014 he was now a CCIE #42487 CCIE Service Provider .CCIE Verification Portal https://tools.cisco.com/CCIE/Schedule_Lab/CCIEOnline/jsp/VerifyCCIE_Form.jsp.(Cisco login required to verify status) Farai visited most of the Tellabs TAC in Finland, India and Naperville, USA for advanced training and familiarising with the Tellabs products and learning how to support and configure it. In April 2014, he joined JSE Limited and was priviledged to be part of the ITD Networks that launched the colocation centre project for JSE Limited on the 12th of may 2014 which boosts for its low latency trading on less than 500us of latency, http://www.datacentres.com/dc-news/johannesburg-stock-exchange-launch-colocation-centre , http://www.southafrica.info/business/investing/jse-020813.htm#.U3Z_9ShqOP8 As of May 2014, Farai worked for JSE Limited www.jse.co.za as a Snr Network Analyst, working on Cisco NX-OS, IOS, ASA and Fortinet firewalls. Certifications * February 2014 - Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert Service Provider CCIE SP * August 2013 – 2014 – Tellabs In-house Product and Technology Training in Finland and USA * March 2012 – Avaya Ethernet Routing & Switching * November 2011 – Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional CCIP * August 2011 - Certified Infoblox Sales Associate * May 2011 - ITIL v3 Foundation * April 2011 - Cisco Certified Network Professional CCNP * June 2009 - Cisco Certified Network Associate CCNA Awards *Awarded the Quarterly AtioTude Award at ATIO interactive http://www.atio.co.za/IT_Outsourcing.htm] in March 2012 *Nomineed as the Contractor of the Year (2010/2011) at ATIO telecoms http://www.atio.co.za/Telecoms.html in September 2011 *Awarded the Quarterly AtioTude Award at ATIO telecoms http://www.atio.co.za/Telecoms.html in January 2011 Personal life Family Farai is the 2nd born in a family of six boys. The family is as follows, ‘’Dennis Mdutywa Dalu’’, ‘’Farai Mdutywa Dalu’’, ‘’Tapiwa Dalu’’ & ‘’Tatenda Dalu’’ identical twins, ‘’Donald “Ngqina” Dalu’’ and ‘’Christopher Bafana Dalu’’ (who took their father’s) names from first to last born. Their parents are Roselyn and Christopher Dalu. Farai met his first love while at secondary school, Matopo Mission, like any ordinary teenager. After several dates, he had a son with ‘’Patience Masuku’’ and their son Duncan Dalu https://www.facebook.com/dee.dalu was born in Johannesburg two days after his mother’s birthday. This was one of the greatest days in his life. Entertainment If not reading a technology book or researching online, Farai loves to watch romance, comedy or action movies. He is a big fan of Usher Raymond and R Kelly. He also has a soft spot for Brandy Norwood and Kelly Rowland music. References Cisco CCIE, need [[Cisco] logins https://sso.cisco.com/autho/forms/CDClogin.html to be able to verify the CCIE status] External links *''http://za.linkedin.com/in/mdutywa/, LinkedIn Profile http://www.linkedin.com check references, (LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking service) *http://www.cciehof.com'', CCIE Hall of Fame (Site might not be up to date, search #42487 if date updated after 20 February 2014.) Category:1982 births Category:Living people